1. “Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.” Maggie McCoy was dead. The family had always hoped that the 74-year-old Irish immigrant Jack McCoy, would go first, but that was not to be. Although Jack still had the friendship of his lifelong friend and comrade in arms, Jessie Walton, Jessie could now offer little more than moral support. His daughters, Theresa and Emma, both in their own ways, had never forgiven Jack for the poverty and humiliation the family experienced during the depression. His eldest daughter, Theresa, chose to block those tragic memories out, forcing herself to create and orchestrate the reality she wished to live in. Conversely, Emma, ten years her junior, not only was forever haunted by these memories, she became one and the same with them. For her, misery was a way of life. So now penniless, and facing homelessness, Jack hesitantly agrees to a short stay at the home of his daughter Theresa. The decision to accept this offer is made easier, as he has always enjoyed the special relationship that he has with his seven-year-old grandson Danny. Their love is unconditional and without the tragic history that infects the rest of the family. However, the inevitable explosive confrontation that had been so long avoided by Maggie’s intercession becomes a reality, when Theresa insists on having a family reunion dinner. When months later, after Jack’s tragic death and burial, a mysterious man comes knocking at the door with a rose for Danny, the family is miraculously given a chance to forgive and redeem. 1. Dag. Hammarskjold. “1956” Markings (1964). tr. Leif Sjoberg and W.H. Auden.